Remote work is harming cities, according to a growing consensus. But that consensus is wrong.
As a future-of-work editorialist, part of my job is to listen to and consider the many complaints that attend large-scale changes in how we work and live. I’ve noticed that two of the biggest complaints about the impact of remote work on cities appear to be mutually exclusive. These complaints are:
Remote work is bad because it enables digital nomads to pour into cities and overuse scarce housing resources — reducing supply, increasing demand, and thereby raising prices, which prices locals out of their communities.
Remote work is bad because it enables workers to move out of cities and live wherever they want (or stop commuting from the suburbs). This leaves office space empty and turns downtown areas into ghost towns, harming local businesses and greatly reducing the tax revenues that fund the city services that make cities livable.
The first complaint says remote work brings too many people to cities; the second says remote work drives too many people away.
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Source:: Computerworld